Jellybelly

"Jellybelly"
Song by The Smashing Pumpkins
Album Lyrics Tabs Spotify
Released	1995-10-23
Studio sessions	March 15-16 1994 – Gravity Studios Fall 1994 – Pumpkinland March-August 1995 – Pumpkinland and Chicago Recording Company May 31, 1995 – Chicago Recording Company July 25, 1995 – Chicago Recording Company August 1995 – The Village Recorder
Length	3:01
Songwriter(s)	Billy Corgan
Producer(s)	Flood, Alan Moulder, Billy Corgan
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness Tonight, Tonight Jellybelly Zero Here Is No Why Bullet with Butterfly Wings To Forgive Fuck You Love Cupid de Locke Galapogos Muzzle Porcelina of the Vast Oceans Take Me Down Where Boys Fear to Tread Bodies Thirty-Three In the Arms of Sleep 1979 Tales of a Scorched Earth Thru the Eyes of Ruby Stumbleine X.Y.U. We Only Come Out at Night Beautiful Lily (My One and Only) By Starlight Farewell and Goodnight

"Jellybelly" is a song from The Smashing Pumpkins' third studio album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Billy Corgan considered issuing the song as album's first single but it was passed over in favor of "Bullet with Butterfly Wings". The original riff dates back to 1992, when the band would jam on it during encores. Corgan has said the line "Living makes me sick, so sick I wish I'd die" is one of his all-time favorites.

“ I felt really close to 'Jellybelly', because it sounds to me like a classic Pumpkins song from a third album. It sounds to me like the manifestation of everything we've ever done on a third album, whereas 'Cherub Rock' sounded to me like a second album single. But 'Bullet's one of those songs where, you know, it's easy to sing along to and [he affects a drawl] ya gotta sell them records. ” — Billy Corgan, Chart Magazine, 1995

The song was covered by American emo group A Thorn for Every Heart on The Killer in You: A Tribute to Smashing Pumpkins.

Liner notes

Corgan, from the liner notes of the 2012 reissue:

“ If memory serves the original riff dates backwards into 1992, where we'd spasmodically play some concoction of this song if there was nothing else to jam on in a 3rd encore. To spice things up the machine gun bit was added to chop up the monotony on the back end of the blues. Once we flipped the script to bring the rat-tat-tat up front, this led to far more excitement. Sped up tremendously, a Teutonic maelstrom emerged, until there was a starship waiting without a single lyric or melody to accompany it into space. A nihilist manifesto thrown like a pink hand grenade into an alley, I just went rode shotgun with the images until it sketched out nicely the gray of my suburban years. 'Jellybelly' holds one of my all-time favorite lines: 'Living makes me sick, so sick I wish I'd die.' Prescient indeed! ” — Billy Corgan, Mellon Collie liner notes

Equipment

In the Mellon Collie sessions, Corgan used a Marshall JMP-1 rack preamp, fed into an Alesis compressor to drive extra gain.

Lyrics

welcome to nowhere fast
nothing here ever lasts
nothing but memories
of what never was
we're nowhere, we're nowhere, we're nowhere to be
nowhere, we're nowhere, we're nowhere to see
living makes me sick
so sick i wish i'd die
down in the belly of the beast
i can't lie
you're nowhere, you're nowhere, you're nowhere to be
nowhere, you're nowhere, you're nowhere to see
there's nothing left to do
there's nothing left to feel
doesn't matter what you want, so
to make yourself feel better
you make it so you'll never
give in to your forevers
and live for always
and forever, forever, you're forever to be
forever, forever, you're forever to me

Availability

Title	Notes	Type
Live At The Riviera		Bootleg • Live
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness	Disc one – Dawn to Dusk	Studio
The Aeroplane Flies High	2013 Reissue CD 6: Live Inside the Dark Globe	Box set
MCIS Demos II		Bootleg
Billy's Gravity Demos I		Bootleg
The Killer in You: A Tribute to Smashing Pumpkins		Tribute

Tour stats

• Total plays: 135 plays (133 full, 2 tease, 1 soundcheck), 1 acoustic, 2 artists
• First performance: The Smashing Pumpkins 1994-03-23 at Redbird Arena, Normal, IL, US (soundcheck)
• First full performance: The Smashing Pumpkins 1995-02-20 at Double Door, Chicago, IL, US
• Last performance: The Smashing Pumpkins 2024-09-28 at Petco Park, San Diego, CA, US

Personnel

• Billy Corgan – guitar, production, recording, mixing
• James Iha – guitar, recording
• D'arcy Wretzky – bass
• Jimmy Chamberlin – drums
• Flood – production, mixing, recording
• Alan Moulder – production, mixing
• Barry Goldberg – recording, mixing assistance
• Chris Shepard – recording
• Claudine Pontier – recording assistance
• Dave Kresl – recording assistance
• Howie Weinberg – mastering

External links

• "Jellybelly" at SPFC